The Bizarro World College Football Playoff rankings identify the four Power 5 teams who are the best at being the absolute worst.
If you’re looking for a little fun, the College Football Playoff rankings didn’t provide it. The new rankings on Tuesday night were basically a rerun from last week.
No one bothered telling Rece Davis, Joey Galloway and the rest of the dudes at ESPN they really didn’t need to show up today because the top seven teams remained unchanged after a quiet week (outside of Waco and Iowa City) in college football.
LSU, Ohio State, Clemson and Georgia would be in the playoff if the season ended today. Good thing for Alabama, Oregon, Utah, Penn State and Oklahoma that it doesn’t because they still have a chance to work their way into the top four.
Or in the case of Alabama, have the top four come back to them as they hope to get in on the strength of … their quality loss to LSU. Yikes.
So if you’re looking for something a little different or something that came as an inspiration from an old Seinfeld episode, the Bizzaro World playoff rankings are for you.
This is where I rank the four worst Power 5 teams in a yet-to-be-realized playoff so they can get a participation trophy.
1. Rutgers (2-8) — A couple of weeks ago, I wrote Rutgers was embarking on an Alabama or Clemson-like dynasty of failure. This remarkable stretch of futility shows no end in sight and I anxiously await to see how low Rutgers can lower the bar. To be fair, Rutgers did shock the world vs. Ohio State last Saturday. No, they didn’t win. Are you nuts?! But they covered the 50-plus point spread and actually scored 21 points, which was almost as much as the 24 points they scored in their other five Big Ten games this year. Is this as good as it gets? Yes.
2. Vanderbilt (2-8) — Derek Mason will return for a seventh season as the Vanderbilt head coach, athletic director Malcolm Turner said on Tuesday. The timing is odd considering the 2-8 record for the team that is even worse than raging dumpster inferno in Fayetteville. Mason is only 26-46 and 10-37 in the SEC but that’s apparently good enough for Vanderbilt to stay the course. Mason needs to win out to avoid his first 10-loss season, but a fourth win in a row against in-state rival Tennessee could at least provide some positivity around the holidays. So that’s nice.
3. Ga. Tech (2-8) — It was supposed to be a rough year for Georgia Tech as they transition out of the triple-option offense from Paul Johnson and into a modern offense under Geoff Collins. Still, it wasn’t supposed to be this rough. Most fans would understand the offense being bad, which it is, but the Tech special teams unit might be the worst in the entire FBS (130 schools). The bright side for Georgia Tech is their defense looks kinda okay, but that could also be the historically-bad ACC providing a nice deodorant to cover that stench.
4. Arkansas (2-8) — Part of me was ready to graduate Arkansas from the Bizzaro World rankings after they fired Chad Morris. I was ready to put Kansas under consideration for this spot. But they do have one more win than the Hogs. Then, I was ready to keep Northwestern in here since their offense resembles 1910 football, but I decided their defense was pretty respectable so I was left with the feral hogs. I know things are rough for the Hogs right now, but I think they’ll be better in time if they hire Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn. It’s either riding the Gus Bus or giving their ex a “u up?” text and getting Bret Bielema to come back to town. But that’s not happening. This is karma for Arkansas for firing Bielema after one bad season.
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